Into the Distance Music 105

 

Skyway Man - The World Only Ends When You Die, album review

Lite Existential

Cosmic country / psyche folk are two terms that go some way to explaining the musical leanings of these brightly constructed ruminations on death and other paradoxically 'serious' explorations. The lyrics convey a richly creative individualism,

 

and the song structures are cleverly constructed, at times with sampling and orchestrations as with The Rise of the Integratron. And there is positive cheer in a title and urge Don't Feel Bad About Being Alive, when 'This is not the same stoic death from the River Styx' hooked to a rock'n'roll set-piece.

Enjoyable originality. Get it here.

Eye Music 54

 

AC/DC - Power Up, album review

Same 'Ol Voltage

It is exactly the same as Strictly Come Dancing and Bake Off (in the UK, with similar in any and every other country with their familiars), that in a time of Covid, the return of something that has not changed one little bit is the reassurance we all crave: dancing, baking, riffing.

The band's latest is the same as the firstest, and the joke with which AC/DC fully engage is they have made the same album now for the 12th time, that number added by the band itself, apparently, when accused of having done so 11 times.

There really is nothing else of significance of add. In a riffrock instructional trio for Covid, we can go with Volume. Space. Nostalgia. That is, turn it up to full, have space to head-bang, and relive the reassurance.

Into the Distance Music 104

 

William Shatner - The Blues, album review

Past Tense / First Syllable / Surname

On the basis I won't be the first to pick up on this, I have presented in, I trust, the most original way for an unoriginal idea.

And you think I was a fool to expect any better? Perhaps, but Shatner can be satirically engaging when tackling other genres/projects, but here the range - actually the binary poles - of shouting to 'emotive' narrative is quite dismal. Established backing musicians, especially guitarists, lay down apt enough backings, but how they then allowed the overdubbed vocals to survive over their names is a little incredulous - unless they were paid before the release. 

Too far beyond, and not far out.